Tuesday, December 28, 2010

From ice ages to record droughts the climate has been changing since the beginning. No one in his right mind could deny that. What I deny is the pro-big government types insisting that human activity is causing what they can't even agree on for any length of time.

In the seventies we were going into an ice age and needed to stop using fossil fuels. In the eighties it was the ozone hole. In the 90's it was global warming. Now it's global climate change.

A 1971 article in the Washington Post claimed that the average temperature might drop by six degrees by 2021 which could trigger an ice age in another 5 or 10 years. Our fossil fuel use has increased and when faced with increased temperatures the climate scientists invented the term "global warming" and used warm winters and hot summers as their proof. Then a record cold winter came along and "warming" magically turned into "climate change" which basically covers everything. Blizzards, droughts, even normal weather patterns all prove climate change and once they prove climate change then any government control of the economy is justified.

To believe that humans can affect something as huge as climate is the height of arrogance. We needed to stop using fossil fuels to prevent cooling. We didn't stop and the temperatures went up. We needed to ban CFCs immediately because their effects would stay in the atmosphere for years. Well, the ozone hole is closing faster than anyone expected. Would it still have come back if we had kept using CFCs? It hasn't lived up to the models so who can say for sure. Incidentally, a recent National Geographic article brought up the possibility that the closing of the ozone hole may be causing further warming, at least in the Antarctic region.

As far as being skeptical, when the symptoms keep changing and the doctor still diagnoses the same disease I'm going to insist on a second opinion. But the second opinion doctors end up discredited, with their credentials threatened just for the crime of disagreeing with the elites controlling the argument. Debate offers are either rebuffed or totally ignored. You can't have a consensus with so many people not falling in line with you. Your credibility goes in the toilet when you insult your opponents.

Friday, December 24, 2010

He came from out of nowhere, or so it seemed. He had no national name recognition, no family connections, no rich uncle. Yet he built a coalition that remains today.

He was enormously popular at times, but scorned and criticized at others. He was plain spoken, spoke from the heart, hardly took time for his own needs, needed little and provided much.

He pulled unspeakable joy out of the bellies of the downcast yet stuffed self-righteousness down the throats of the sanctimonious.

He turned the tables on convention. He cast out false assumptions, sickened the establishment and established hope for the sick.

Were he with us today, in the flesh, liberals would love his compassion but hate his pragmatism. Conservatives would love his pragmatism but squirm at his tolerance. Moderates would hate his exclusivism but love his universality.

He could be all things to all people, if only the people would let him. He offered drunks, dopers and sex addicts two steps not 12 to recovery. He told people they were responsible for their own actions and to stop wearing their piety on their sleeves. He ran a lost and found service. His door was always open.

He was never politically correct. His monologues comforted and offended at the same time. His oblique stories left a lasting impression. No man had ever spoken the way this man did. No one has since.

He healed. He wept. His fire burned bright on a midnight clear. It is even brighter now, in a darker world than the one he left.

He was a conjunction of time and eternity, of God and man. To quote an authority, he united the vertical of divine revelation with the horizontal of history's meaning. In so doing, he made great claims about himself that some believed religiously.

Yet his best buddies disclaimed him when they feared being on an enemies list. While they slept, he stayed up all night talking to his dad. When they couldn't sleep because of a storm, he slept like a baby.

Some say this is his birthday. Scholars have debated that for years. Nobody really knows when he was born, just that he was and in a most unusual way.

And he left the same way he came, following a short career that flourished, floundered, revived, died and then lived for a little while longer. He named as his successor an Advocate, who is still on the job.

Birthday greetings to you, kind Sir.

And, a happy return.

This editorial by J.E. McReynolds first ran in The Oklahoman on Christmas Day 1994.

The coming of Christ by way of a Bethlehem manger seems strange and stunning. But when we take Him out of the manger and invite Him into our hearts, then the meaning unfolds and the strangeness vanishes. - C. Neil Strait

Friday, December 17, 2010

I'm not offended by Hannukah, Ramadan, Kwaanza, or even World Humanist Day. This may sound rude, but I don't care if you are offended by Christmas. Nobody has a right to not be offended, so just tough it out.

The way things are going, in a few years it will be illegal to display anything religious on private property if it's in view of the public.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

I'm not a lawyer but I'm smart and I've read the US Constitution. I've also read SQ 755 and all 25 pages of Muneer Awad's lawsuit.

He does show how he thinks he would be personally harmed by 755 going into effect but his main reasons just don't wash. Considering the over 40 years of judicial hostility towards anything Christian I fail to see why the references to Islamic Law cited in his will should be given any thought. Just put the details in and leave out the reasons why certain things are in the will.

He claims offense and injury, ireparable harm, stigmatizing, and denigrating his faith. If the Muslim faith requires judges to consider laws or beliefs NOT enacted by our elected representatives then I suppose it is being denigrated.

Admittedly there have been no attempts to use Sharia law in Oklahoma but elsewhere in the US it is being used in civil cases and a judge in New Jersey denied a restraining order to a wife because she has no right under Islam to refuse sex with her husband. Thankfully this was reversed on appeal but we can't count on this kind of continued common sense.

I also believe that if the woman had been Christian, Jew, or even athiest the judge would have gone with womens' rights from the start.

This injunction against 70% of the voters should never stand but my reading of the judges order indicates that she may have already made up her mind in the plaintiff's favor and the hearing next week is just for show.

Friday, October 22, 2010

As a general rule, your right to free speech ends when you set foot on your employer's property. You can be fired for anything you say while representing your company.

HOWEVER, an organization that receives taxpayer funding should be more open. Religious based programs have lost funding because they refused to hire gays, transgenders, or just non-members of their denomination.
Churches can lose their tax-exempt status for getting too involved in politics.

If National Public Radio wants to continue receiving public funds, then they should allow all opinions, offensive or not. If they want to filter broadcasts according to one political vision, they should give up public funding and compete for advertising dollars just like every other news organization.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Just to start off, I think burning anybody's holy book is stupid. All it will do is piss people off and solve absolutely nothing.

That being said, I don't remember any worldwide condemnation a few years ago when "Palestinian" terrorists holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethleham and used pages from the Bible as toilet paper.

We're always being urged to show sensitivity to Muslims but then they push to build this mosque near ground zero in spite of the knowledge that it will hurt feelings and even inflame some.

I guess the difference is, nobody's going to hijack a plane and crash it into Mecca in protest.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Why do women expect us to have a detailed review of EVERY song we hear and EVERY movie we see? "Ok" should be a valid answer. It means "average." I didn't especially like it but I didn't hate it either.

About me...

I'm an outspoken conservative in the Bible Belt. I do not believe in a right to not be offended. If you don't like what you read here, feel free to comment and give me your opinion politely, or just leave quietly.